Professor Ostbye is a chronic disease epidemiologist and public health researcher with a special interest in obesity and diseases of the elderly. In New Zealand, he worked with the Tokelau Island migrant study, an epidemiological study documenting the increase in obesity, gout, diabetes and cardiovascular disease among Pacific Islanders who moved to New Zealand and adopted a "Western" diet and lifestyle. He was a center principal investigator of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging, a population based, longitudinal study of dementia and other diseases in the elderly, including over 10,000 Canadians followed for over a decade. He has authored or co-authored over 180 scientific articles in medical and public health journals.

 

He teaches outcomes research to family medicine residents. His current research includes studies of: obesity in the postpartum period (Active Mothers Postpartum – AMP) , appropriate use of clinical preventive services, genetic and environmental predictors of cognitive decline among elderly in Utah, caregiving in the elderly, doctor-patient communication, and occupational health surveillance among health care workers. He is also an investigator in the new reseach and teaching linkage project with the medical faculty at Ruhuna University, Galle, Sri Lanka .

 

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Dr. Bernard Fuemmeler holds a doctoral degree in clinical child health psychology and master’s degree in public health with an emphasis in behavioral epidemiology. He conducts research on both cancer survivorship and cancer prevention. In the area of survivorship, Dr. Fuemmeler’s research has focused on psychological functioning and adjustment of cancer survivors and their families. In the area of prevention, he conducts research on the bio-psycho-social correlates related to modifiable cancer risk factors (e.g., smoking, physical activity, and obesity) from a life-course perspective. He is particularly interested in identifying salient bio-psycho-social factors in the transition from adolescence to young adulthood that would inform health promotion and prevention intervention science. His research is investigating parental and family factors that influence obesity and physical activity during youth, and child psychiatric conditions that have the potential to influence smoking risk. He is also working with collaborators from multiple disciplines at Duke University investigating candidate genes implicated in regulating dopamine and serotonin in the brain and their association with obesity, physical activity, and smoking.

 

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Pediatric Psychology and Family Health Promotion Lab 

 

Cathrine Hoyo is a cancer epidemiologist with a focus on genetic and epigenetic mechanisms likely to be involved in tumorigenesis.Genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of interest are those involved in obesity, including insulin resistance and inflammatory response pathways. Cancer sites for which these mechanisms are being investigated are esophageal and prostate adenocarcinomas. She is principal investigator of two small projects. One is a case-control study aimed at determining whether polymorphisms in candidate genes in the insulin-like growth factor pathway are associated with esophageal and gastric cardia adenocarcinoma. A second is a cross-sectional study among newborns aimed at identifying epigenetic factors present in cord blood samples that may contribute to the fetal origins of adult chronic diseases.

 

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Professor Parkerson's research interests can be described globally as the study of health related quality of life, defined in terms of physical, mental and social function. His group has developed and validated a 17-item patient-report questionnaire instrument, the Duke Health Profile (DUKE). His group has developed and validated a provider-report severity of illness measure, the Duke Severity of Illness Checklist (DUSOI), based upon the symptom status, complications, prognosis and treatability of each patient health problem. Computerized data on functional status from the DUKE and severity of illness from the DUSOI have been combined with patient age and gender to develop an ambulatory case-mix model, the Duke Case-Mix System. (DUMIX), which can be used as a predictor and monitor of outcomes in patient care, quality improvement, resource distribution, and reimbursement for health services.

 

Publications